


flesh by the pound

by mongrelmeats



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongrelmeats/pseuds/mongrelmeats
Summary: Jewel loses his arm.
Relationships: Male Adaar/Iron Bull, Male Inquisitor/Iron Bull
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	flesh by the pound

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I haven't written anything in a while! You might've noticed I took my longform fic about Jewel down. I didn't like it very much and I bit off more than I can chew. I decided to just write shorter scenes that I feel are important to him instead. Here's one of them!

He falls through the mirror's kaleidoscope surface with the magic of it sucking at his feverish skin, his gleaming masterwork clothes. He stumbles, pitches forward, calling out, “Bull” in a voice that sounds on the verge of throwing up.

The Bull's head snaps in the direction of Jewel's hoarse call and he sits up, pushing past Dorian and Varric to meet Jewel's stumbling gait halfway between where they'd been seated and the mirror. He's used to Jewel drunk, swaying and tripping and slurring his words, but Jewel's gait is stiff and agonized now, his motions dizzy in a wholly different way. The Bull catches him and eases him to the ground.

“I got you, kadan, I got you...you're okay,” he placates.

Jewel's arm isn't glowing anymore.

The green lights are down to nothing but glimmering embers at the corners of the deep splits in his skin. The hand that once mended a hole in the sky now lay motionless, forearm down hanging limp off Jewel's elbow. The skin is black and his fingernails have fallen out. Blood oozes, half-coagulated, down the remaining skin among the thick gashes.

Jewel grasps at the front of Bull's armor with his intact hand, fingers pale and shaking. Dorian and Varric crowd around. He looks up with his half-lidded lavender eyes bloodshot. 

“Off,” Jewel rasps, “Can you...cut it off?”

“We'll get you back to see the healers, okay Diamond?” Varric says. 

“No, now. Now now now cut it off,” Jewel begs, hot tears languidly flowing down the intact side of his face and seeping past the bloody cracks on the other side. The faint green ember-light of the mark refracts through them.

The Bull shakes his head. “Can't do that, kadan, you need a healer.”

“No no it has to...it has to go now I don't wanna die!” Jewel sobs, “I don't wanna die, Bull!”

Raising his good eye the Bull glances between Dorian and Varric, a slow consideration between the three.

Jewel coughs out, “Please. _Please_ , Bull, I don’t wanna die like this.” 

Dorian's barrier spell is concentrated, focused, and wrapped shimmering around Jewel's heaving body. All but for the mangled left arm, left bare to the sky.

Varric stands Bianca up in the dirt at his side and kneels down, sitting at Jewel's head and placing a blocky hand on his right shoulder.

“Alright. We'll get this fixed and we'll get you outta here, okay?”

Jewel nods, frantic and sweaty.

The Bull raises his greataxe above his head and swings down.

–

Jewel wakes up cold and sweating. Dreams of stone faces with terrified eyes, of his jaw collapsing and his teeth falling out, of The Bull's axe swinging towards him; dreams that fade into half-remembered concepts in the dark. He sees unintelligible shapes in the dark and cannot tell how far away the ceiling is.

He sits bolt upright, hands out in front of him, only to pitch to the side offbalanced and feel a strong hand on his chest, catching him softly.

“Easy, easy,” The Bull's voice comes through the fog in Jewel's head, like cut through the fog at the Well of Sorrows but quieter. Soft and gentle in a way Jewel's grown familiar with. “Don't move too fast, Kadan, just breathe.”

Jewel looks to the source of the voice and sees Bull's broad shape framed by moonlight flowing in through an open window. Sheer curtains gently flutter around it.

He can't speak at first, just darts his eyes around the room. He struggles to focus them on anything, but as they adjust, he sees the marble and gold that make up his room in the Winter Palace.

Looking back to the Bull with frantic eyes, Jewel tries to form a question but it won't pass his lips.

“How much do you remember?” Bull asks.

Jewel rubs his right hand over his aching face. Finally puts together his answer. “Solas. That's...the last I can...he did something to my arm. Left me there.”

“You came back through the mirror. Remember that?”

“No. Don't remember how I got back.”

“Then, uh...I'll just cut to the part where I hacked your arm off for you.”

Jewel's eyes go wider. “You _what_?”

Bull puts up a placating hand. “I'd have rather brought you to a healer. But...it was bad, and you begged me. Never even seen you that messed up before. So it's not the cleanest job. But it's done.”

Jewel flops back down on his pillow. Sighs deep and finally hazards a glance over at his left arm. Just below the elbow, it ends in a bandaged stump. “Fuck me,” he says.

Bypassing the obvious joke, Bull brushes a strand of Jewel's messy hair out of his left eye. “There wasn't gonna be any saving it. Wasn't much left by the time you got back to us.”

“Can't believe it,” Jewel laughs, a hysterical note, “Shoulda just...cut it off years ago. Fucking thing.”

“Might be in agreement with you there, boss.”

–

Jewel dreams of the Viddasala. She calls to Hissrad and she commands him _vinek kathas_ , and in every dream Hissrad complies.

“Understood, ma'am,” he says, cordial and obedient.

In others, he's not even with Jewel, didn't even come along, but he steps out from some door, some hallway, somewhere out of the line of sight in perfect Qunari heavy armor, tells Jewel he was smart to have left him behind but it doesn't matter.

In all of them, he calls Jewel _bas_.

In all of them, the axe swings and Jewel lets it come. In every dream it sinks into his ribs cracking the bones like driftwood under its weight, cleaving into his beating heart. Slices him from sternum to groin in an impossibly smooth motion and spills him out. 

He wakes up from everyone aching with dread and heartbreak, every one feeling as real as stone and only shook off when he replays the really-real events in his mind and gropes in the darkness to ensure that Bull is still in the bed beside him. Most of the time, the Bull is already awake and bringing him water or tea. He refuses to bring Jewel any liquor.

Every night for the next week he's lying in that bed, the blade keeps descending.

–

Bull brings Jewel his flask after the first week and lets him have a tentative gulp. Quickly replaces it with a cup of tea. Then asks, “What’ve you been dreaming about? Keep waking up real bad.” 

Jewel swallows and takes a moment, lets the vodka’s burn in. Answers in almost a whisper. “The Viddasala. When she…” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “When she said…” 

“Vinek kathas. Yeah.” 

“I know you wouldn’t do it,” Jewel says too quickly, “Like...I _know_ that. I know! But...I keep...dreaming that you did. That you come at me with the axe and just…” 

The Bull watches him expectantly, lets him continue. 

“And you call me _bas_. And then I just let it happen. I can’t get it out of my head.” Jewel’s voice cracks at the end, thick and choked. 

“Hey,” Bull takes Jewel’s remaining hand in his, pulls it over his heart. “I meant what I said. Not a fucking chance.” 

“It never stops,” Jewel breaks, sobs and tries to cover his face with his left hand that isn’t there anymore, then in frustration yanks his right hand away to do the same. “Every time I make a wrong call, it sticks with me, and every time I make a right call I just dream about making the wrong call and think about--if I had fucked up--even when I do everything right I can’t do anything right. I still feel like I _failed!_ ” 

The Bull pulls him in by his good shoulder, pressing Jewel’s forehead in against his barrel chest. Jewel heaves another sob, hot tears dripping down Bull’s skin, sucks in harsh breaths.

“Breathe for me. You’re okay. You’ve done good, Kadan, you’ve been through all this shit and still come back strong. Now you get to rest for once.” 

Jewel keeps shaking his head against Bull’s chest, sobbing, “I tried, I tried, I tried.” 

\--

The next morning he’s numb, the feeling that comes after crying that reminds him of having a cold. Healing magic expedited his physical recovery, and he’s told he’s clear to finally take something more than a sponge bath, which helps. He lets the Bull wash him in the huge Orlesian marble bath, strong massive hands all over his sore body without the pretense of sex, only a deep and careful attention. It makes Jewel cry again, just a little, nothing like the night before. 

He stands in front of the mirror - a real one - as Bull neatens his hair. It’s chopped short just under his ears. Red, angry keloid scars run up the side of his neck, framing his ears in fractal patterns, curling under his left eye socket. The left eye and corner of his mouth sag downwards, reminding him of an old man in his home village, apoplectic. Within his pupil was a shattered-glass disk of shimmering green, reflecting fadelight. He could see out of it, but it didn’t focus quite right and the shapes were always shifting just out of sight. 

“I look fucked up,” he says finally. The first thing he’s said for an hour. 

“Nah,” The Bull answers, “You look strong. Like a survivor. Which you are.” 

Jewel shakes his head. “I don’t feel like one.” 

“I think you will, eventually. Let yourself have time.” 

\--

He strides into the council with the heels of his boots clicking against the marble floor. Bull follows at his side, one hand lightly at the small of his back. Guidance and support, let people talk. 

Jewel stands before the Exalted Council with his shattered-glass eye, his jagged fractal scars, and his coat sleeve pinned up around the space his left arm used to be. 

He stands there and drops the heavy book to the floor, lavender eyes burning bright, done and not done. Finished with what’s become of this venture they all started years ago, but unable to rest - not when he’s got a world to save. Again. 

He disbands the Inquisition, and leaves without any flourish, any witty remarks, any clouding charm. And it’s a fucking gorgeous sight, the Bull thinks, to see him laid out raw without the pageantry, letting himself be pissed that any of this happened, telling the council to argue amongst themselves all they damn well want without him. 

Jewel leaves the room, and the Bull follows him, and they step outside into the blinding sun. 

They stand together and look up at the scarred sky. Jewel gives him a lopsided grin, a glint of his gold tooth, and leans against his shoulder. And as far as Bull’s concerned, it’s the most beautiful he’s ever looked. 

  
  
  



End file.
